Mar Shimon now made common cause with the Persian nobility. The English and Russian ambassadors had procured the appointment of Dawood Khan as governor of the Christians in Oroomiah, in order to protect them from illegal oppression. The nobility of course opposed this; and Mar Shimon, by promising his aid in the removal of the protector of his own people, secured their cooperation in his wickedness. The converts were now insulted at every turn. They could hardly appear in the street, and the authorities afforded no redress. The missionaries had no earthly friend nearer than Mr. Stevens at Tabreez, who did all he could for them; and the pious natives felt shut up to God as their only refuge.
Yahya Khan, the governor of the province, now wrote urging on Mar Shimon, and ordered his agent in Oroomiah to aid him to the utmost of his power. As Yahya Khan was brother-in-law to the king, he was able to do the mission much harm at the court; and the patriarch, encouraged by such a coadjutor, set himself with renewed zeal to destroy it; but in September, the prince royal summoned him to Tabreez, and the nobility hardly daring to resist the order, he was reluctantly preparing to comply, when news came of the death of the shah, and all was confusion. The missionaries had been praying for help against their dreaded enemy, Yahya Khan, and lo! his power to harm them perished with his master.
The night after the news reached Oroomiah, anarchy reigned, and all kinds of crime abounded. Five men were killed near the mission premises, and the firing of guns was heard all night long; but though outside were robberies and murders, within that enclosure all was peace. Though its inmates knew that the fanatical population would gladly stone them, yet they felt it a privilege to labor on under the care of the Keeper of Israel.
In Persia, no king, no government; so besides this anarchy in the city, the Koords came down and plundered many villages, burning the houses and driving the people for shelter to Oroomiah. These strokes fell most heavily on the Moslems, many of whom were robbers themselves. The fear of an attack on Seir was at one time so great, that the ladies were sent off, and the gentlemen remained alone to guard the mission premises; but both in Seir and the city the houses of the missionaries were thronged by multitudes seeking relief, and each approaching footstep announced some new tale of woe.
Mar Shimon, after the death of the king, prudently retired into Turkey, and his servants were put under bonds to keep the peace. The Koords, however, drove him back, later in the season, but stripped of his power to persecute. It may sound like the close of a tale of fiction to add, that the next time Miss Fiske met the patriarch was in Gawar, August, 1851, when he rode up to the tents of the missionaries to inquire after their health, before he went to his own. He staid an hour and a half, appearing more free and social than ever before; and when they returned his visit, he came out of his tent to meet them, and treated them with unusual respect, saying, in the course of the interview, "I fear that Miss Fiske is not happy here: she does not look well." On being assured that she was both well and happy, he said to his attendants, "This lady is happy only as she has a number of Nestorian girls around her, eating care[1] for them, teaching and doing them good." So, when our ways please the Lord, he maketh even our enemies to be at peace with us. [Footnote: This is the Nestorian idiom. We say, "taking care of them.">[
Babilo, the carpenter, who made the coffin for the child of Priest Eshoo, was taught to read by the younger girls in the Seminary after school hours, and thus writes to Miss Fiske, November 20th, 1859:—
"I remember how, thirteen years ago, in that trouble with Mar Shimon, when my father beat me for attending meeting, and men despitefully used me, dear Mr. Stocking and you comforted me in the great room. I shall never forget your love. Give my love to your dear mother, who so loved us that she willingly gave you to the Lord, as Hannah did Samuel.
"If you inquire about my work in the city Sabbath school,—I teach a class of ten women; three of them, I trust, are Christians. When I read your letter to them they greatly rejoiced. I reminded them of the meetings you used to have for them in your room, and their eyes filled with tears. In the afternoon I went to Charbash, and read your letter to the eighteen women in my class there. They, too, were very glad. Five of them, I trust, are Christians. We are now studying Second Timothy. After the lesson, I question them on Old Testament history; and then I teach the women and their children to sing."